Last February 16, The Tablet, a London weekly of good repute, published an article seeming to forecast Benedict XVI's intentions about the Mass. The source of this information was from a letter, written by Cardinal Ratzinger in June of 2003 to Professor Heinz Lothar Barth at the University of Bonn in Germany.

"I believe that in the long term the Roman Church must have a single Roman Rite...The Roman Rite of the future should be a single rite, celebrated in Latin or in vernacular, but standing completely in the tradition of the rite that has been handed down"(1).

Benedict XVI says the Novus Ordo Mass versus Deum at the Sistine Chapel on January 13, 2008. A hybrid Mass to please both progressivists and traditionalists.

Commenting on The Tablet's article, Mr. Atila S. Guimaraes formed the hypothesis that this "single rite" of the future may turn out to be a hybrid of the traditional Roman rite and the Novus Ordo. As evidence he pointed out that in the language of Summorum Pontificum, priests who use the traditional rite must accept the Novus Ordo, saying it occasionally, and also accept Vatican II. Discursively, Guimaraes introduces a possible strategy of Benedict XVI regarding this agreement. Based on the recent appointment of a conservative as papal master of ceremonies, he submits that this could be a sop for some conservative elements in the Church, who are struggling to find reasons to embrace the progressivist New Church. Guimaraes argues that if the lines in the letter are true, it could portend a hybrid Mass "in which the progressivist conquests will be guaranteed by wrapping them in a conservative cover"(2). It is hard to dismiss the hypothesis of Mr. Guimaraes.

Such strategy is not unknown in the military sphere. For example, Prussian war theorist Carl von Clausewitz observed that one must keep in mind the dominant characteristics of both groups who are fighting. He notes: “Out of these characteristics a certain center of gravity develops, the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends. This is the point against which all our energies should be directed"(3).

Every traditionalist Catholic knows we have been at war inside the Church with the progressivists for decades. They also know that the "hub" of Catholicism is the Mass. That's why "all energies" have been directed against it for the last 40 years. That's why the replacement of the Mass by the Novus Ordo threw the Church into a no man's land of confusion and disbelief. If, in fact, a hybrid Mass is a viable prospect for the future, it follows that the aim of the progressivists is to finally conquer the Catholic Resistance, bringing a false peace. They hope to close the chasm that exists between the right and the left, with all joining hands for an ecumenism without restraints. The New Church would then become the center for a new world order. But this cannot be.

The "Virgin Mary" over the doorway of Mahony's Cathedral in LA - neither male nor female...

According to Aristotle's law of identity, everything in existence has a specific nature (4). The Mass has a specific nature, and the Novus Ordo has another specific nature. The fiction that they can become one is as preposterous as the Greek myth about Hermaphroditus becoming an androgyny. (5) It is as preposterous as imagining that the "androgynous Vulcan statute" at Cardinal Mahoney's so-called cathedral in Los Angeles represents Our Lady of Guadalupe. Which brings us to the spider.

The late Chief of CIA Counter-intelligence James Angleton had to deal constantly with the problem of deception. A defector must give up valuable information from his regime to establish his credibility in the host country. This forces the authority in the host country to ask the question: "Can the person be giving up facts from his own country in order to pass lies to us? Is this person a double-agent?"

Here a calculation must be made. If the agent is trying to deceive, what he is getting must be worth more than the intelligence he's giving up. Hence, the more truth he gives, the greater the potential for deception: The stronger the truth, the more damaging the lie. Hence, everything must be read backwards "as in a mirror"(6). T.S. Elliot’s Gerontion put it in the form of a question, "In a wilderness of mirrors, what will the spider do?"

As mentioned above, priests who say the Tridentine Mass must consent to say the Novus Ordo and accept Vatican II. Now then, Vatican II and the Novus Ordo do not constitute a hybrid, the latter being composed of two things with different identities. Pari passu, they do not represent a kind of institutional Cartesian dualism.

No, the Vatican II and the Novus Ordo were generated from the same brutal desire to destroy the Catholic Faith. They are tightly fused in the one same identity, forming the hub of Progressivism. They are one unit, and this is the reason for the categorical command that priests accept both. The truth of the Tridentine Mass was given to priests with the motu proprio. But how damaging is the lie that they must live with?

Guimaraes' hypothesis about the intention of the Pope to form a hybrid Mass is sound, because by doing so, "the progressivist conquests will be guaranteed." Keeping in mind almost a half century of deception in the Church, we should consider the vital goal of the enemy to destroy the hub of Catholicism, the Mass. We should look for a spider in this idea of a hybrid Mass, and read backwards, "as in a mirror." If we do this, behold the reflection: the hybrid Mass will follow the law of identity. Its "specific nature" will be the Novus Ordo.

1. A.S. Guimaraes, Heading to a Hybrid Mass, Bird's Eye View of the News, Tradition in Action
2. Ibid.
3. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, NY: Everyman's Library, 1993, p. 720.
4. Cf. The Laws of Thought and the Heresy of Progressivism, Tradition in Action, August 3, 2007
5. In Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus was the child of Aphrodite and Hermes. Born a remarkably handsome boy, he was transformed into an androgynous being by union with the nymph Salmacis. It is also the name given to all people with both masculine and feminine qualities.
6. David C. Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors, NY: Harper & Row, 1980.